PA - Atheist Billboard - "Don't believe in God?" - "You are not alone."

A word for nonbelievers
Billboard on I-95 reaches out to atheists in the region.

By David O'Reilly

Inquirer Staff Writer
With its image of blue sky and fluffy clouds, the rectangle floating lately over I-95 near Allegheny Avenue suggests something dreamy, almost heavenly.

At least from a distance.

Drivers headed north toward the giant billboard might first discern the words God and Believe and suppose this to be the work of a fundamentalist church.

But this is the work of no church.

"Don't believe in God?" it asks. "You are not alone."

Think of it as a sign of the times.

Mounted by a consortium of local atheists, it is an invitation to the area's atheists, agnostics, skeptics, rationalists and religious freethinkers (no one label fits them all) to overcome their differences and form a coalition.

"Hundreds of thousands of your neighbors in the Delaware Valley feel the same as you do," according to the Web site www.phillyCOR.org, to which the billboard directs passing motorists.

STEVE RADE, ATHEIST: I believe there are a lot of people who question their belief in God.

KENNEDY: Steve Rade is from the Greater Philadelphia Coalition of Reason, the atheist group that erected the billboard on Interstate-95 just outside the "City of Brotherly Love." He says he's just trying to bring atheists together.

RADE: People want to know that they're not alone, that there is groups they can speak to and join up with.

KENNEDY: Recently, societies dedicated to atheism have claimed record membership and books on atheism have become top reads on the "New York Times" bestseller's list. Critics call it a disturbing trend.

This billboard in Philadelphia seems to represent a trend of a new assertiveness, even aggressiveness on the part of atheists.

Peter Sprigg is from the Family Research Council, a Washington, D.C.- based lobbying group that promotes conservative values. He says behind the books and billboards is a secularist agenda.

PETER SPRIGG, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL: Atheists are very vigorous in promoting the separation of church and state. But with the extreme way that they interpret that concept, you would basically eliminate every mention of God from the public square. And that would amount to an establishment of atheism.

KENNEDY: The family research council saying you're promoting a secularist agenda, what do you say?

RADE: I say that we are promoting a secularist agenda. We do believe in a separation of church and state. And we believe that this is the way the country should be run.

KENNEDY: And Rade admits he would prefer if everyone was an atheist. He says the world would be a better place without institutionalized religion, Bill and Megyn.

BILL HEMMER, CO-HOST: We can find some people who disagree with that?

KELLY: I should think so.

. . . . .

The last bit about atheists and agnostics being a minority group is interesting and probably should not have been included in an objective news story without a deeper explanation.

A key element in the definition of a minority group has traditionally been in inherent unchangeable characteristic. Now, I am not saying that people who do not believe in God are spiritually incapable of believing in God. Nor am I saying that they can’t choose to believe in God. That’s a world of messy theological debates that has no place on this blog.

What I am saying is that reporters should be very careful before they use loaded terms such as “minority group” without referencing an accurate definition to support exactly what that term means in this context.

But thankfully, God offers mercy so we can escape justice.